At first the Batoro were inclined to be fearful of undergoing chloroform, but King Kasagama, half out of curiosity and half out of a real desire that his people should derive the fullest benefit from the “doctor’s wisdom,” successfully banished these fears. One morning he came down to the dispensary asking that a slight ulcer from which he was suffering might be lanced under chloroform. This was kept a profound secret from his people till it happened to reach the ears of his mother just as he was getting over the operation. The poor old lady came bustling down in breathless speed very fearful of the effects the “sleeping medicine” might have had on her son. She was intensely relieved to find that nothing worse had resulted than rather a sorry expression on the usual smiling countenance of the patient. It soon became the topic of the hour, and even to the distant villages the news spread. From that time surgery was in great demand; in fact it became a kind of fashionable epidemic. The need for medical work in these parts is seen in the one hundred to one hundred and fifty out-patients that came up every day for doctoring, and the scarcity of vacant beds ever since the opening of the new hospital. Indeed it seems a practical impossibility to carry out to these people the message of love, peace, and goodwill unless one can at the same time do something to alleviate the terrible physical suffering to which they are subject. Besides being a most effectual channel for conveying balm and healing to their souls, the object lessons given to the in-patients must accomplish much in introducing new ideas of cleanliness and possible comfort into their own poor, dirty homes. CHAPTER XXI Scholastic Work There are many people who, not being quite up-to-date in missionary literature, have an idea that the work of a missionary in such places as Africa is to stand under the shade of a huge sun-hat, umbrella, and palm-tree, in the broiling heat of the day, and preach to a small crowd of open-mouthed astonished semi-savages. The picture does not attract them, and they dismiss the subject from their minds with “I could never be a missionary.” Well, although I have found in Africa the identical topee, the umbrella, palm-tree, the broiling sun, and a few gaping crowds, yet the picture is a painful distortion of the truth. If there is one thing that a missionary has less to do with than any other, it is preaching—at least, that is so in Uganda. He rather assumes the rôles of teacher, schoolmaster, builder, carpenter, doctor, nurse, and everything else, for he has learned that the African cannot be a saint without being a scholar and an artisan, any more than men of other nations can.